If you need to get access to some extra cash quickly and easily then this method maybe for you. Turn your pennies and coins into spendable cash! At the end of each day it is inevitable to amass copper and silver coins which can be a real nuisance to manage. If you are paying with cash for shopping, petrol, gifts and food then you cannot avoid accepting coins forming part of the change returned. Higher coin denominations are easily spent but smaller unwanted coins are often put aside. Millions of pounds worth of change across the country is sitting idle. It is estimated upto £600 million of loose change is stored in many UK households, around 30 million Britain's keep the money at home unused. Around half of the 23 billion coins in circulation are lost around the household or simply stored in piggy banks or improvised containers. The Royal Mint has to calculate lost and unused money and take this into account when new coins are minted, a large amount of this money is also simply lost and never reclaimed.
Converting loose change make money, the traditional way
Until recently, the only way consumers could offload large quantities of spare change was to sort and count all the money themselves, which is time consuming and often error prone. Each coin denomination would have to be sorted into plastic bags and taken to the bank to be weighed and counted. There is a much easier and quicker way of getting the same job done at your local supermarket instead of the local bank.
Coin counting self-service kiosks, a better way
Coinstar was founded in 1991 in the USA and has built a business around the problem of changing large amounts of coins for the consumer. Coinstar hit on the idea of converting consumer change into cash using self-service kiosks. Not only are the kiosks located across the US but they have been introduced to the UK's major supermarkets. If you have many coins to convert then you can simply bypass the banks and use a kiosk to count the coins automatically. This is one of the quickest and most convenient ways to turn loose change into paper notes and pound coins to use as spendable cash. A picture of the kiosk can be found on the Coinstar's UK website here, look out for these when you next visit the supermarket.
How to convert loose change into spendable cash
Each kiosk has a very simple interface, a screen and several buttons to initiate the counting process. The self service kiosks
are straightforward to use, you take your container of money to the machine and answer a few basic questions. At this stage
you can choose to donate a small percentage of your total to charity and contribute to good causes. After you have completed
the onscreen prompts you are ready to offload the coins and begin changing your money.
The machine uses a pivoted tray where the coins are placed, the tray is lifted at an angle which allows them to drop
into the machine to be sorted and counted. All current UK coins are accepted, the machine also operates at a high speed and can
count 600 coins per minute. Once the tray is empty it can be refilled with the remaining money using the same steps described
above. Whilst the coins are processed, the screen will categorise and display a running count of each coin identified, these
are split into separate denominations so you can see a total of the amount converted. A receipt is printed once all coins have
been submitted - this shows a breakdown of coin denomination, their individual totals along with the final amount converted.
Once all coins have been deposited, a receipt is printed showing the total amount, this can be redeemed at the customer services
desk within the store. Converting loose change make money is quite painless at your local supermarket, just set aside some time
to visit.
Unidentified coin rejection
Most coins will pass through the machine for sorting and counting without trouble, however the occasional coin will be rejected after attempting to identify it as a valid UK coin. The machine is calibrated for UK coins only and will therefore reject all other foreign coins. It is possible for some valid coins to be rejected, this will happen if the coin is defaced or has large dents on the edge or surface. Usually there will be a very small proportion of coins that will not pass through successfully. All rejected coins are deposited in a small tray. Rejected coins can of course be fed back into the machine but in most cases these will simply be rejected a second time.
Coinstar fees and donating to charity
Coinstar charge a small commission for using their service, currently in the UK there is a 7.9% commission on the total amount of change that is processed. For example, the commission on £100 converted would incur a commission of £7.90. Customers in Ireland will be charged 9.4 cents for each Euro counted. When converting change at a self service kiosk you can choose to donate part of the total amount to one of the participating charity organisations. It is also possible to send in a Gift Aid receipt ensuring the charity can claim back 0.28p in every pound. Even though a small commission fee is charged it is a very easy way of converting your spare cash.
UK supermarket locations where you can change money
Coinstar self serving coin counting kiosks are located in many of the UK's main supermarkets, these include:
Morrisons
The Co-Op
Asda
Tesco
Sainsbury's
Kiosks are often located near to the exit or entrances of the store. You can search for your nearest coinstar machine (via
postcode or town) using the following link on the UK Coinstar website here.
For more general information you can visit the Coinstar website
here.
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